Japan’s plan to dump radioactive waste at a small atoll in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean has aroused global concern among environmental groups.
The coral atoll of Minamitorishima is Japan’s easternmost territory, 1,200 miles southeast of Tokyo. It also has rare earth minerals, found on the seabed near the island.
The atoll covers just 1.51 km2 and is isolated, with no residents apart from a few government officials and military personnel.
Its remoteness makes it an attractive destination for burying high-level nuclear waste for up to 100,000 years.
The government wanted to study the feasibility of two other towns in Hokkaido for the same; however, this was not accepted by the locals.
However, this atoll is not inhabited, hence the authorities chose it for the project. It also has basic infrastructure such as a runway and port facilities.
An official request to survey the island for conversion into a nuclear waste dumping site was sent this month by the Nuclear Waste Management Organisation of Japan (NUMO) to Kazuo Morishita, the
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